


Falling into Forgiveness

by TimeLadyoftheSith



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Love Confessions, Near Death Experience, Oneshot, injuries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-06
Updated: 2019-05-06
Packaged: 2020-02-27 00:23:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18727891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TimeLadyoftheSith/pseuds/TimeLadyoftheSith
Summary: When Rose has a life threatening accident, the Doctor and the TARDIS work together to heal her. As she recovers, he confesses his truth, not knowing she can hear every word.





	Falling into Forgiveness

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mrsbertucci](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mrsbertucci/gifts).



“Sir... sir...” The Doctor looked up from the tray of purple chips he was saturating in vinegar for Rose. She’d sent him off to fetch a snack, while she perused the solar system culture fair being hosted by the local education center. Well, technically she hadn’t sent him to fetch. She’d just casually mentioned she was hungry and they should grab a bite after she decided between some poorly done clay sculptures. He’d gone to get them because she just looked so happy and adorable chatting with the only Parthulian students around. He expected to see the man who ran the food cart to be trying to give him a receipt, but he was just pointing past him. “Isn’ that the woman you were with.” It took the Doctor seventy three milliseconds to realize he was pointing up, and he whirled around.    
  
There was a woman all right. She was currently standing on the edge of a metal platform that was part of an obstacle course for the older children, holding tightly to a cable overhead, as she stepped out onto a narrow wooden bridge no wider than a balance beam. Her blonde hair whipped from the wind, as she stared straight ahead, eyes narrowed and jaw clenched in concentration. It wasn’t just any woman. It was Rose. That’s when the Doctor heard the high pitched fear warble of a mother Klortipox, and the higher warble of a child Klortipox. The child was dangling in a safety harness beside the bridge, wailing in terror as he tried to grab on and pull himself back. The safety person monitoring the course was on the ground, his harness torn, surrounded by people. Rose was now inching along the bridge, harnessless, using her advantage of the lighter than gravity on the planet to keep her balanced, in an attempt to reach the child.    
  
“Rose!” The Doctor dropped the food, hearts in his throat, as he tore through the crowd. Lighter gravity or not, the danger was real, and it ripped up his spine to his brain, spurring him on. “Rose don’t!” The wind was too strong, and it had already made two people fall. Even as she moved, he could see how the overhead rope was swaying back and forth. “Rose! Please! Go back!” The shouts and sirens were drowning him out, and he slammed into the crowd gathered to watch on in anticipation. “Rose! Go back! Emergency-“    
  
“‘M almost there Doctor! I got this!” She didn’t look down, but the confidence and determination in her voice did not stave off his fear. He knew shouting would only distract her more, so he began digging in his pockets, desperately hoping he still had one of those emergency anti grav nets he’d designed last week. They weren’t there, and he felt his mind spin as Rose reached the child, and grabbed onto his safety line with one hand. In the lighter gravity, she barely showed any strain hauling the child up until he was balanced precariously in front of her, facing the way he’d come. Emergency services were on scene now, tending to the injured safety worker, and unfurling some sort of material under the bridge.    
  
“C’mon, Rose... C’mon!” The Doctor clenched his fists, nails biting into his palms as he watched the pair edge along to the platform. Rose was only holding on with one hand now, using the other to keep the child balanced. The boy stepped onto the platform, and a cheer sprang up even as the material on the ground began to hiss with air, slowly inflating. Rose was only two steps away, but the Doctor wouldn’t breathe until she was safe on the ground. The cheer made the boy turn, his safety line jerking the rope overhead, as another gust of wind ripped through the plaza. Rose’s victorious smile faltered, and the Doctor felt his hearts freeze.    
  
Time slowed down around the Doctor, as he watched Rose’s foot slip, regain it’s place, then slip again. Her fingers clung to the overhead rope, knees banging into the wood, and for one soul crushing instant her eyes locked on his, wide with fear. Then Rose was falling. “No!” He sprinted forward, arms outstretched, hearing her terrified scream of his name lost in the cries of the crowd. The rescue pad was only partially inflated, and the gut-wrenching crack of bones was delayed but a gaseous ‘whoosh’ when it flattened under her.    
  
“Rose! Rose!” The Doctor scrambled onto the pad, stumbling to her side, where she lay flat on her back. Her blonde hair was splayed around her like a halo, left leg pinned under her rear, and arms limp. “Rose, say somethin’!” He pleaded, his blood ice in his veins as she sucked in a ragged breath.    
  
“Doesn’ hurt... doesn’ hurt.” Her lovely eyes rolled back into her head, and she mouth went lax as blood began to bubble in it.    
  
“No! Nononono!” Whipping out his sonic, hands trembling in dread, the Doctor scanned his crumpled human. One rib was snapped, obviously puncturing her left lung, right shoulder was dislocated, and her C-1, C-2, L-3, and L4 vertebra were shattered. The only blessing seemed to be that they hadn’t nicked her spinal cord.   
  
“Sir, we need to-“    
  
“DON’T TOUCH HER!” The Doctor bellowed, making the men stagger back. “You won’ have human compatible facilities or doctors for another five years!” He needed to get her to the TARDIS, but he was terrified to move her. His infirmary could fix this all in a matter of hours, but carrying her risked pushing the vertebrae fragments into her spinal cord or up into her brainstem or shifting the broken rib to puncture her heart. The blue paint shone from its spot only a two minute sprint away, but it had never seemed so far away. All this he processed in two seconds, as the reality that he may lose her sank in.    
  
The hum of hover technology whipped the Doctor’s head around, and he saw gurney waiting nearby as the Klotripox medics’ facial fringes flashed purple to teal in worry. “Give it to me! Now!” Without waiting, the Doctor aimed his sonic at it, making it fly forward until he could grab it and lower it to Rose’s side. “I need two people! Hurry! One hat her head ‘nd one at her legs!” The medics rushed forward, crouching beside him. “When I say lift, pick her up jus’ high enough to get this under her, bu’ she has ta stay completely straight. D’ya understand me?! Perfectly straight.”    
  
“Yes.”   
“Yes.”   
  
Gripping the gurney the Doctor sucked in a breath. “Lift!” They picked her up, as she gurgled out more blood, and he slid the gurney beneath her. “Down, gently!” Like they were handling a newborn, the medics eased Rose down onto the white sheet. Without speaking, the Doctor activated the controls, and the gurney rose up to his elbows. Then he ran, adrenaline in control as the crowd parted before him. He made the two minute sprint in seventy three seconds, only pausing to kick open the door of the TARDIS. “Activate emergency life support! Start the bone repair ‘nd spinal stabilization equipment now!”   
  
The TARDIS wailed in alarm, as he rushed Rose through the console room into the hall. A door flew open dead ahead, revealing the infirmary, and the Doctor skidded in. He threw on the grav locks to freeze the gurney, hearts racing, respiratory bypass taking over, and yanked the thin rod from it’s niche in the ceiling. Sliding it along until he positioned it over Rose’s body where it emitted a pink beam. “Spine stabilization completed! C-1, C-2, L-“    
  
“I know they’re shattered! Shut up ‘nd repair them!” He cut off the male robotic voice, as he grabbed the handheld device designed to seal lung wounds while expelling the trapped air in the chest, and a pair of scissors. Without preamble, he cut her shirt open, stomach churning as he pressed the device to her skin. When it beeped completion, needle retracted, and puncture sight closed, he flung it aside, listening to the whistling buzz followed by the crackling of her vertebrae being remodeled. Rose was still gurgling, now gushing globules of blood as her body tried to adjust. A mauve light flashed, as the cloister began to clang.   
  
“Blood in patient’s lung decreasing oxygen absorption-“    
  
“She’s drowning I know!” He had already been running to the cabinets, grabbing the tool he needed, and scrambled back. Forcing his hands steady, he slipped the small vacuum tubes down, monitoring their screens, until they reached their destination. Then he activated the machine, tears stinging his eyes as Rose’s blood began to flow up into the collection tank. “Status!”    
  
“Normal lung function restored in five, four, three, two, one.” The Doctor carefully extracted the tubes, throwing the machine over his shoulder as the alarms and cloisters faded to silence. “All bone and vertebral structure re-established. You may now commence with reduction of right glenohumeral joint.”    
  
The Doctor wanted nothing more than to attempt to bring Rose back around, but the thought of resetting her shoulder while she could feel it made him cringe. Carefully, he swallowed, lowering the gurney, and gritting his teeth, rolled her humerus back into it’s socket. The muted pop was amplified in the room, echoing over her rapid, labored breathing. Under his fingers, her pulse was racing, as her skin became clammy, and her legs began jerking. “Shock you idiot!” He shouted at himself, wondering how he had forgotten the basics of human first aid in his panic just as the vitals screen began shouting out that her O2 sats were dropping to eighty-five . “No! No! Rose! Hang on!”    
  
Diving across the room, the Doctor grabbed an oxygen mask and slammed his hand on the flow controls. Then he jerked back to her side, sliding the mask over her mouth and nose, watching as the screen flipped to eighty-three. “No! Please! Rose don’t do this! Stay with me!”  Eighty-three became eighty-six, then ninety, and the squealing beeps began to cease. He slipped the band over her head, knees nearly buckling in relief as her heart rate began to slow and her sat levels bounced between ninety-seven and ninety-eight.    
  
“Patient stable. Patient may now be safely moved to bed. Recommended treatment for non-threatening decreased blood and nutrient levels are-“ The Doctor silenced the infirmary voice interface as he deactivated the emergency equipment and lifted Rose in his arms. Gasping for breath as his body began filtering the adrenaline, he carried her over to an actual medical bed and lowered her gently to the clean sheets. Then he eased her out of her destroyed shirt, so he could access her arm to start a fluid and nutrient IV. She hadn’t lost enough blood to warrant a transfusion, and the thirtieth century IV bags would easily promote new production naturally.    
  
It wasn’t until he flopped down onto a stool and clutched her clammy, chilly hand in his that the reality of it really sank in. Rose had almost died. All it would have taken was for him to have been delayed in getting her back, or if she had landed face down on the ground, or if she had landed on her head. “Why? Why did you have to be so.... so.... stupidly human?!” He gasped, watching her chest rise and fall under her bra, breath steaming the mask with each exhale. “Why did you have ta be so you?! I could’ve lost you!”    
  
He knew the answer, knew it even as he spoke. She’d done it because she was Rose Tyler. She was the woman who couldn’t stand by and watch. She had to get involved. She had to try to help, to fix things, to be compassionate and concerned and do it even if it meant she may die. He’d known that from the moment she’d swung across the Nestene on a chain to save him, from the moment he let her see the pain in his eyes at surviving the War and held his hand. She was the woman who could show a Dalek mercy. The Doctor knew all of that, and it was the damned reason he loved her.    
  
Yes, he loved her, and that was why he was shaking, panting for air while his respiratory bypass refused to kick in, why he had been repeating her name over and over as his mind tried to catch up with his body. The Doctor could send her away to keep her safe, he had so many programmes for that, because the thought of her dying in front of him was too much. It was too much, and it had almost happened. “I almost lost you. Rose.... I can’... I can’t lose you. I need you. Rassilon’s seal, I need you to help me hold on ta him. You’re the reason ‘m the Doctor again. Please, wake up.”    
  
He knew she would. The Doctor knew in his mind Rose would wake up, but these seconds ticking by with only her breathing, her hand so limp in his, were torture. Even as he eased the IV from her arm, blindly sealing the tiny wound with the sonic, time crawled agonizingly slow. “Please, love. Please. Let me see your eyes. C’mon Rose. I need you. Come back to me.” His hearts were so loud in his ears, drumming incessantly as he stroked her fingers and pressed them to his lips. Six minutes and forty-eight seconds had never felt so much like eternity. “Please, wake up. Please, love.” Then Rose moved.   
  
She sucked in a deep gasp, hand clenching his fingers, as her eyelashes fluttered open, unfocused pools of honey as she blinked and coughed. Her other hand lifted to her mask, pulling it away before he could stop her. Then Rose looked at him, wincing, as her head moved, and she frowned. “Doctor... you’re crying.”    
  
“No ‘m not.” He reached up, surprised to find his cheeks soaked and to taste salt on his tongue. “Maybe I am.”    
  
“Why? Where?”    
  
“You fell, off the obstacle course! You almost died!” Wiping his face hard, the Doctor watched his precious, alive, and healed Rose blink rapidly and then gasp as she remembered.   
  
“It wasn’ a dream! I thought I was dreamin.” Her voice cracked dryly, and the Doctor didn’t wait for her to ask. He practically scrambled to get her a glass of water and cradle her head in his arm as she sipped it. “You were talkin’, to a computer, ‘nd talkin’ to me. I thought I was dreamin’.”    
  
“Don’t sit up yet! You’re gonna be a bit dizzy. You lost bl-“   
  
“You said you love me.” Rose cut him off with a soft whisper, the shining topazes she called eyes flicking between his. He swallowed hard, fear of her reaction, of her inevitable rejection to his panicked confessions. The Doctor knew she didn’t reciprocate his feelings, that she was too good, to unmarred by the darkness to ever feel the same. “I wasn’t dreamin’?” How could her gaze be so full of hope, be shining up at him like that?    
  
“No.” Her face crumpled for a flash, and the Doctor was undone as his own hope mingled with relief that she was alive and whole. “You weren’ dreamin’. I know you don’t-“    
  
“I love you too.” The Doctor felt like he’d been punched as Rose’s words sank into his mind. “I can’t believe you feel the same. ‘Ve been dying to tell you, but I didn’t think-“    
  
“How could I not love you? Rose, you have no idea-“ The Doctor found himself cut off as Rose surged up and pressed her lips to his with a sob. Knowing he shouldn’t, knowing he didn’t deserve it, he kissed her back, scrambling onto the bed to pull her onto his lap as their tongues met in a hesitant dance. Then Rose swayed in his arms, gasping as she clung to his shirt, breaking the kiss.    
  
“Blood rush.” She breathed, falling forward to rest her head on his shoulder. The Doctor sighed, in exasperation and disbelief. Rose Tyler loved him, and she still didn’t listen to his warnings. “Think I need to lie down a bit longer.”    
  
“Yeah... you almost died. Easy, love.” As gently as he could, the Doctor eased Rose back onto the pillow and finally let himself cup her cheek. As she broke into a smile and pressed her lips to his palm, he felt his hearts skip. “Better?”    
  
“No.” She kissed his palm again, but before he could ask why she wasn’t, Rose met his gaze and whispered. “Because you’re up there, ‘nd I’m down here. Can’t kiss you this way.”    
  
“Better rectify that.” Kicking his boots off, the Doctor laid down beside his precious Rose and pulled her back into his arms. “Better now?” Her smile was all the answer he’d ever need, consequences be damned. Rose Tyler was alive, and she loved him. This time he caught her lips in his and felt the universe begin to forgive him.

 


End file.
